FREE ESSAY ON MAGNETOTHERAPY

MAGNETOTHERAPY

Introduction:
In days of old, it was a common site to see individuals peddling serums or devices that
were purported to cure all your afflictions. Most of these claims were, of course,
fraudulent but held a fascinating and alluring idea. Despite today's medical milieu, and
the many advances made in medical technology since those days of covered wagons and
street side pharmacies, humans are still searching for some way to cure the afflictions
of the human condition. What if someone made the claim, much like those traveling serum
sellers of old, that they could provide mankind with a simple solution for many medical
conditions? The concept of magnetotherapy, or the treatment of ailments through the
exposure to magnetic fields, has been presented as just a solution for many of today's
medical woes such as musculoskelatal injuries, soft tissue trauma and pain associated
with ailments such as arthritis. The description of the interactions of magnetic fields
with ions, based on the findings presented by Faraday's Law versus that of the Hall
effect reveal that magnetic fields are not all the same. 
Magnetic fields are found in two primary states. The fields that magnets create are
either static, as is the case with permanent magnets (such as magnets commonly found on a
refrigerator), or dynamic as in the case of an electromagnet. Electromagnets allow the
generated magnetic field to be more dynamic and therefore can be made to pulse or
fluctuate at different frequencies or intervals. Magnetic fields are typically measured
in units of energy called Teslas or Gauss. This measurement standard is used to indicate
field strengths for both pulsing and static magnetic fields.
Some researchers assert all magnetic fields render equivalent beneficial results;
however, based on a study conducted by Dal Monte, Fontanesi, Cadossi, Poli, and
Giancecchi as well as many other published works from other researchers, dynamic magnetic
fields produce greater therapeutic effects than their static field counterparts (1).
Tom Jue, Ph. D., a professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of
California at Davis, agreed about the possibility of magnetic fields having beneficial
effects on biological tissue but seemed skeptical about the data that was presented in
contemporary literature. He noted that a majority of the data was found under
questionable research methods and was not yet scientifically verified and in fact seemed
relatively ambiguous. He also pointed out that a majority of research and implementation
of this therapy was done in the realm of Orthopedics, or the field dealing with injury to
bones (2).